


Shatter

by eerian_sadow



Series: Avalon [82]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Eye Injuries, Mentions of child neglect, Transformer Sparklings, mentions of child abuse, mentions of past injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-11
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 03:30:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9580781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eerian_sadow/pseuds/eerian_sadow
Summary: Every child, no matter the origin, deserves to live.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i've wanted to write this ever since that little oneshot i did with sunny finding out they were having a sparkling. shatter has been this character that's just stuck with me for a long time--almost since i created the avalonverse. i've finally decided to introduce him here.

Bluestreak thought he was hallucinating the first time he saw the sparkling. It wouldn’t have really surprised him to find out he had developed that kind of glitch after all the loss he had suffered recently—and the first time he saw the sparkling was less than a week after Jazz had been deactivated.

Sunny had been there the next time he had seen the sparkling. The yellow Twin’s questioning amazement had practically vibrated across their sparkbond.

_Was that a sparkling?_

_Yeah. I’ve seen a sparkling running around here before, but I thought I was going crazy._

Sunstreaker wrapped an arm around Blue and kissed him on the top of his head as the sparkling’s footsteps faded into the distance. “You’re not any crazier than I am, Blue.”

“That’s not saying much,” Bluestreak said, turning to the other mech with a grin.

“Thanks a lot,” the artist replied, mock affronted. Then he gave his lover a matching grin and a kiss on the lip components. “Let’s finish this patrol and head back in. The kid can make it another night without us hunting him down.”

Bluestreak was amazed at his mate’s ability to pick up on thoughts he wasn’t consciously aware that he was having; he was exhausted, but he didn’t just want to leave the sparkling alone in the ruins of Polyhex. He was also relieved that Sunstreaker wasn’t going to just shrug the encounter off. He could feel the artist’s desire to find the sparkling as intensely as his own.

He wouldn’t have to let the sparkling grow up alone when there were a lot of Autobots who would be glad to take him or her in.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Blue sighed as he picked his way up to the top of the broken remains of another tower. He hated Polyhex patrols—both because of the climbing over rubble involved and because it reminded him of everything the Autobots had lost when they retook Cybertron—but he and Sunstreaker were the only ones who were willing to take them. The Autobots could have built on everything the Decepticons had managed to build—and Shockwave had managed quite a bit of reconstruction in the four million years they had been in stasis lock—but Unicron had destroyed everything before they could even start.

Seeing such tangible reminders of that progress being so violently undone hurt more than just a little.

When he reached the top of the ruined tower, the sniper lifted his optics from the treacherous ground to survey his surroundings. He was stunned to see the sparkling who had been haunting him for almost a month doing the same thing less than two meters in front of him.

They both froze as their optics met.

Blue used the stillness to study the sparkling. He was fairly certain the sparkling was a mech, but his light frame and Seeker build made it hard to be sure. The sparkling had a purple on indigo color scheme, and it caused Bluestreak to almost miss the Decepticon crest painted on his wingtips. He felt sick at the thought of someone so young being forced—or sparked—into the Decepticon cause.

He hid his discomfort with a smile and an outstretched hand. “Hi. I’m Bluestreak.”

The sparkling didn’t reply and he clutched his hands tightly to his chest plates. He stared at Bluestreak for a moment longer, then his optics grew wide. Bluestreak followed the sparkling’s gaze down to the Autobot crest painted on his chest plates.

He lifted his optics back up to meet the sparkling’s again. “I won’t hurt you,” he said solemnly.

The sparkling turned and ran.

“Wait!” the sniper said, running after him. “I really wont’ hurt you!”

He knew it was a stupid idea to be running through the debris even as he chased after the sparkling, but he couldn’t just let the little mech be left alone and defenseless out here in the ruins. If he didn’t manage to mangle himself beyond repair in the destroyed city, he stood a very good chance of being led straight into an enemy stronghold; it wouldn’t be the first time that Galvatron had deposited and abandoned a unit on Cybertron. It was also a supremely stupid idea to go into the potential danger without at least letting someone know where he was, even if Sunstreaker would always be able to find him.

Hoping to keep himself out of too much trouble, he opened his comm line. _Hey, Sunny!_

_You sound excited. What’s up, Blue?_

_I found the sparkling and I’m following him right now._ He paused as he leapt some debris to keep the sparkling in sight. _He’s got Decepticon crests on his wings, Sunny._

_Wings? He’s a baby Seeker, then? Could get ugly. I’ll round up Gravity and Tripwire and we’ll converge on your coordinates._

_Thanks._ Bluestreak felt a twinge in his chest compartment, a sure sign that he was overstressing the systems that had never really repaired themselves properly since Skywarp and Thundercracker had beaten him. He and Ratchet had always talked about getting them replaced… _Hurry as much as you can, Sunny. I’m going to be useless in a fight._

_Understood. Trip’s on his way to you now. Be careful, Blue._

_I will._ The sniper cut the connection before he could give in to the urge to be… nonregulation over an open channel.

When he returned his full attention to the chase, he realized that the sparkling Seeker had gotten farther ahead of him. He wasn’t surprised; he always slowed down when his systems were overstressed. As long as the sparkling stayed in sight, Bluestreak wasn’t worried.

He chased the sparkling for another two joors before Tripwire ran up next to him.

“You don’t look so good. You okay, Blue?” Trip looked worried when Blue glanced over at him.

“Old injury,” Blue replied. “I’ll be okay. Stay on the sparkling; he may be here with other Decepticons.”

Tripwire nodded. “You want me to catch him?”

Bluestreak thought about it for a moment. The young Seeker could run for far longer than he could and, if there were Decepticons waiting wherever they were being led, he would be in no shape to fight them. Or, if the younger mech was simply running away and had no intention of trying to hide from them somewhere, he could simply do so until he collapsed from the system strain.

“Yeah, catch him if you can.” It would be safer for everyone that way.

“Right.” The warrior mech sprinted ahead of Blue, catching up to the sparkling fairly easily. The sniper was mildly surprised by this; he hadn’t known the other mech was a sprinter.

Tripwire reached out and grabbed the sparkling by one arm. The sparkling turned and tried to pull his arm out of the older mech’s grasp. When he discovered that Trip wasn’t going to let go, the sparkling yelled.

“Let me go!”

Tripwire shrieked and put one hand to his optics. His other hand kept a tight grip on the Seeker sparkling’s arm. The sparkling continued struggling, but he didn’t say anything else. As Bluestreak got closer, he could see optic fluid running down the warrior’s face.

“Trip! What happened?”

“He’s got some kind of sonic weapon built into his vocalizer, I think.” Trip wiped at the fluid trickling down his face. “I can’t see, Blue.”

“It’ll be okay, Trip. Sunny and Gravity are on their way.” Bluestreak stopped next to his friend and the sparkling and knelt down in front of the Seeker. The sparkling stopped struggling and tried to curl up and hide. Bluestreak took the young mech by the shoulders. “I have him, Trip.”

Trip let go of the sparkling and pressed his palms over his optics, trying to stem the flow of fluid. Blue focused his attention on the sparkling in front of him. “Why are you running?”

The sparkling shook his head and said nothing.

“Are you afraid of us?”

He received a hesitant nod.

“Why?”

The sparkling shook his head again.

“Why won’t you answer me?”

The younger mech pointed at Trip.

“You’ll hurt us? Is that what you mean?”

The sparkling nodded again.

“Primus! What happened?” Bluestreak didn’t look away from the sparkling when Sunstreaker and Gravity ran up behind him.

“His optics are completely shattered,” Gravity said.

The sparkling whimpered.

“I don’t think he meant to hurt him,” Bluestreak said. “Trip said something about a sonic weapon when the sparkling yelled at him.”

At the sniper’s words, the sparkling tried to pull himself away again. Blue tightened his grip on the Seeker’s arms. “We’re not going to hurt you,” he said again.

“I’m going to take Tripwire to a medic,” Gravity said, interrupting any further interaction with the sparkling. “Should I send you some backup?”

“I think we’ll be okay,” Bluestreak replied. “But tell Elita what’s going on over here.”

“Will do.” Gravity took Trip by the arm and began carefully leading him away. Bluestreak could hear their footsteps—and the femme’s meticulous directions—for several joors after their departure.

_Blue, do you think this is a good idea?_

_He’s just a sparkling, Sunny. He wasn’t trying to hurt Trip. He was just trying to get away from me._

_Well, I don’t think it’s a good idea. If there are other ‘Cons around here, we could be in a lot of trouble._

_I know._ “Where were you going?” Bluestreak asked the sparkling. “Are there other people there?”

The sparkling was still for a long moment. The he nodded once, solemnly. Bluestreak thought the young mech looked terrified.

“We won’t hurt you,” the sniper repeated. “We want to help you.”

Sunstreaker remained silent, but he projected nervousness and discomfort across their sparkbond. Blue removed a hand from the sparkling’s shoulder, took hold of Sunny’s hand and gave it a comforting squeeze. The yellow Twin gave him a startled look in return.

Bluestreak gave his bondmate a smile, and then looked back to the young Seeker. “It’ll be all right.”

The words were meant to comfort both mechs. Blue didn’t know if it had worked on Sunstreaker or not, but his mate stopped broadcasting his discomfort across their bond. The sparkling looked from Bluestreak to Sunstreaker thoughtfully for a long moment, then grabbed the wrist of the hand Blue was still holding him with and tugged.

“You want us to come with you?” the sniper asked.

The young Seeker nodded. Bluestreak repressed a sigh at that; his internals hadn’t had a chance to cool down and restabilize yet.

“We’ll come,” Sunstreaker said, unsubspacing his pistol. “But you’ll have to go slow.”

The sparkling nodded and tugged the sniper’s wrist again. Blue stood and let the young mech shift his grip from the sniper’s wrist to his hand.

The young Seeker led them at a more sedate pace, but it was still faster than Bluestreak really should have been moving. He was tired, but after trying to find this sparkling for so long, he wasn't willing to just stop because of it.

The young mech might never give them a chance to help him again.

They didn’t walk for very long; they must have been fairly close to the Seeker’s destination when Tripwire caught him. The sparkling stopped them in front of a badly mangled wall with a barred door in it. He let go of Bluestreak’s hand and darted forward to slip through the bars.

Blue was suddenly nervous as the sparkling disappeared into the dark room beyond. Sunstreaker shifted behind him, equally nervous.

“We should have had Gravity send backup,” the yellow Twin said.

“Too late now,” the sniper replied. “Besides, we’re going to have plenty of time to defend ourselves from anything that would try to come through that wall.”

They didn’t have time for any more conversation, as the sparkling came back to the barred door with a battered femme in tow. She seemed familiar, but her paint was fading to grey with mistreatment and her plating was badly misshapen. It took Bluestreak a moment to realize her optics were dark—completely missing, actually—and that the sparkling was leading her.

She wrapped her hands around the bars when they stopped at the door. “Is someone out there? Shatter won’t tell me what’s going on.”

Blue felt like he had been slapped. He _knew_ that voice! “Emdee?”  



	2. Chapter 2

“They made him to be a weapon,” Emdee told them. “And they tested him on us.”

The Seeker sparkling—Shatter, Emdee said his name was—whimpered and buried his face in the femme’s side. She gave him a small smile and hugged him.

“It’s all right,” she told him. “No one blames you. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

Bluestreak could certainly agree with that. Shatter hadn’t done anything wrong at all, aside from be sparked on the wrong side of the war. He was too young to have chosen his side, and he was soft-sparked enough to have taken care of five blind Autobot prisoners for the five meta-cycles he had been online. He was amazed at the sparkling’s intelligence and compassion.

“After our captors tested their new weapon and found him effective but too easily traumatized to be useful, they left him to our care. They left Shatter alone with a dozen blinded mechs and femmes hoping he would deactivate with the rest of us.” Emdee fell silent.

“Are you all right?” Elita-1 asked gently.

“No.” The medic’s reply was simple and complete. “Can we finish debriefing later? I don’t… I can’t talk about it right now.”

If Emdee still had functional optics, she would have been looking pointedly at Shatter.

“Yes, of course,” Elita said quickly. “Bluestreak, can you and Sunstreaker escort our guests to medbay and then their quarters?”

“Sure,” Blue replied. Sunstreaker nodded.

Elita looked relieved; Bluestreak thought that she didn’t really want to hear what had happened to the medic and the other Autobots who had been prisoners with her. Blue knew he didn’t.

Rather than dwell on that, he stood and walked over to Emdee. Sunny was a step behind him. Shatter looked at both of them, still afraid, and clung more tightly to the femme.

“They won’t hurt you,” Emdee assured him. “You can trust Bluestreak.”

Blue felt Sunstreaker’s displeasure at being indirectly singled out. He had changed a lot over the vorns since Emdee had been captured by the Decepticons, but she didn’t know that. Bluestreak sent love and trust back to him along their bond. 

_She doesn’t know how things have changed. Give her time, Sunny._

_I know. It just…stings. More than a little. We all got so close while we were on the_ Ark. _I was a pain in some afts, but everyone trusted me, finally._

 _Everyone still trusts you. Emdee just doesn’t know how the dynamic has changed._ “Sunny, you help Emdee and I’ll carry Shatter. He looks tired.” Bluestreak gave the sparkling Seeker a smile as he spoke. “The medics can look them over at the same time and we can see if Trip’s had his optics replaced yet.”

Shatter perked up at that statement. He looked at Bluestreak with confusion, and pointed at Emdee’s optics.

The sniper’s smile turned into a delighted grin and he extended a hand to the sparkling. “Sure we can replace her optics. That’s why we’re going to see the medics. Come on and we’ll show you.”

Emdee looked relieved when Shatter stood and took Bluestreak’s hand. She smiled in his direction and extended a hand to Sunstreaker. The yellow Twin pulled her to her feet.

“I don’t really know how to do this,” the artist confessed. “I’ve never led the blind before.”

“Just give good directions,” Emdee replied. “Shatter won’t be able to help me, because he won’t speak when there are other people around.”

“I’ll contact you tomorrow to continue your debriefing,” Elita-1 said as they left the room.

“Thank you, Elita,” the medic replied.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

They made it to the medbay with a minimum of accidents. Sunstreaker’s directions were not as detailed as they might have been, had he been used to leading a blind person, but Emdee discovered quickly that she could compensate for that by dragging her fingers along the wall as they walked. She still tripped over uneven patches of the floor that they didn’t notice or didn’t realize were there, but she wasn’t hurt and never complained.

Shatter refused to let go of Bluestreak’s hand from the moment they stepped inside the bay. He looked at the medics and the other former prisoners they were tending and whimpered in fear.

“Its okay, Shatter. The medics are helping the others, not hurting them. Let me show you.” Blue was glad that Prowl had done the same thing for him when he had been afraid or intimidated by something—it gave him an example to follow with Shatter.

His processor froze for a moment at that thought. Shatter wasn’t his sparkling and probably wouldn’t ever be. Sunstreaker would probably say that he was over identifying with the young Seeker.

But, dammit, someone had to show him that the Autobots were different from the Decepticons.

Shatter followed a step behind him as he walked over to Perceptor. The scientist-turned-medic had been on leave from Optimus Prime’s unit when the Autobot prisoners had been brought to the base and had insisted on helping in the medbay. No one had protested; the three medics at Elita’s base were hopelessly overworked on a good day anyway.

Perceptor gave them a sad smile when Bluestreak stopped Shatter in front of the patient he was working on. “Is this the sparkling I heard so much about before we put everyone in stasis?”

Blue nodded. “This is Shatter. Shatter, this is Perceptor. He’s helping your friends.”

Shatter looked from the sniper to the scientist unsurely. Perceptor knelt down in front of the sparkling. “You did a very good job of taking care of your friends. They are all grateful to you for it. You should be proud of what you’ve done; it would have been hard work, even for a fully mature mech.”

The young Seeker looked pleased, but he still clung to the sniper’s hand tightly. Bluestreak was a little awed at the fact that Perceptor had managed to keep his compliment to words small enough for Shatter to understand. “Shatter’s a little nervous about what you’re going to do to Emdee. Do you mind if he watches you work a little?” 

“Not at all,” Perceptor replied. “I’ll have to demonstrate on Emdee, though. We’ve really finished with everyone else here.”

Shatter looked over at Emdee with a horrified expression. She was speaking softly with Sunstreaker, and she didn’t seem to have heard the conversation. The yellow Twin eased her onto a medical berth as they watched, then he walked over to stand next to his mate.

“I won’t hurt her,” Perceptor said softly. “She and I have been friends since she became my bondmate’s apprentice.”

The youngest mech looked thoughtful for a long moment. Blue wasn’t sure he had understood everything that Perceptor had said, but Shatter did understand friendship; he had proven that by leading Bluestreak’s patrol to Emdee and the others despite his own fear.

Hesitantly, Shatter let go of Bluestreak’s hand. He looked up at Bluestreak and the sniper gave him an encouraging smile. “I promise that it will be alright.”

Shatter nodded hesitantly, then walked over to Emdee. The femme smiled when he touched her hand. Perceptor watched them, and then turned to Blue and Sunny.

“The others all said that Emdee was more damaged than the rest of them. If only a fraction of her damage is as extensive as I was told, her recovery will be very long. It will be best for her if she is not trying to care for herself and such a young sparkling, no matter how intelligent and resourceful he may be.”

The medic walked away after speaking, but neither Sunstreaker nor Bluestreak were immune to the implications of his statement. 

Sunny put a hand on his mate’s back. “Blue? Tell me what you’re thinking?”

Blue turned to look at the artist. “I don’t want him left with strangers. He’s already scared and in an unfamiliar environment.”

“But do you think we can do it?” Sunstreaker’s voice didn’t betray any of the unsureness Bluestreak could feel along their bond.

“Shatter already trusts me. I think we have to try.”


End file.
